Despite this growing resentment, the animosity at the top is not trickling down to the rest of the employees at Apple and Google, reports John Gruber of Daring Fireball. John says his sources at Google and Apple think the rancor between the two companies is "weird".

John compares it to Microsoft, which cultivated an 'us versus the world' attitude. Microsoft wanted its employees to hate all other competitors, he says. Apple and Google don't have that type of culture:

Outright hostility just doesn’t feel right to the engineers at either company. It is weird. There are decided and very obvious cultural differences between the two companies. Apple engineers tend to think Google makes ugly (but effective, smart) software, and they’re suspicious of Google’s “we want all of your data” strategy. Google engineers see that Apple doesn’t get the web — or at least the web as a software platform — and consider that quaint, and they’re flat-out offended by Apple’s autocratic control of the App Store. But, on the whole, the engineers at each company like each other. There are a lot of Apple engineers who use Google services and a lot of Google engineers who use Apple computers.

...This is a generals’ war. The rank-and-file at Apple and Google aren’t looking for battle, or even expecting it.